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The team focused on drug repurposing to potentially expedite any future regulatory steps. Since the drugs are already being used for other indications, their toxicity and side effects, for example, are known and approved.
The way the drugs work is by inhibiting two targets in the virus: the E (envelope) protein and the 3a protein.
The E protein is the most conserved of all virus proteins. For example, while the spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1 (the 2003 virus) are only about 75% identical, their E proteins are roughly 95% alike. This means the drugs would likely remain effective even when the virus mutates, Arkin told the Post.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines target the spike protein.
In previous studies, E and 3a proteins were shown to be essential for viral infectivity. Arkin’s team was among the first to study the E protein of the first SARS coronavirus in 2004.
As part of research that Arkin’s team has been conducting for more than two decades, they identified that the E protein is an ion channel, a type of protein family expressed by virtually all living cells that because of its structure has “served as excellent and frequent targets for pharmaceutical point interventions,” including for cystic fibrosis, epilepsy, arrhythmia, neurodegenerative diseases, hypertension, angina and more, the report said.
It is important that “a large arsenal” of drugs exist to fight SARS-CoV-2, Arkin said.
“We should never be in a situation where in our arsenal we only have one firearm,” he said. “If we only have one and we rely solely on it, and then there comes a time that it fails, we will be in a very precarious situation.”
Arkin believes his team is set for in vitro and in vivo studies, and he is looking for a pharmaceutical partner to help carry these trials through.
Citing the success of Gilead obtaining US Food and Drug Administration approval for Remdesivir in record time at the start of the pandemic, Arkin said he was optimistic that at least some of these compounds could be approved for use against COVID “very quickly with the right partner.”
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